RAIDER CARDBOARD NATION
Mechanicville community comes together to fill the stands for basketball games
MECHANICVILLE, NY » Last year, Mechanicville had one of the biggest student-sections in Section 2. Now, they’ll have the largest section of cardboard-cutouts.
Just a few days ago, the Mechanicville community began putting together a plan to fill the stands in the high school gym with cutouts for the Red Raiders rivalry game against Stillwater.
“Michael Raucci saw the cardboard cutouts on the NBA and NCAA games and said why don’t we do something like that and they put this all together just in the last few days,” said varsity coach Rian Richardson. “People who have been in Mechanicville their whole like know what a strong community we are. We support one another no matter what the situation is.”
Raucci, the General Manager at Toyota of Clifton Park, teamed up with other local business leaders including CJ DeCrescente and family, William Dyer and Sons, and Bruce Tanski.
The group made it happen in under a week.
“When I arrived here last August, I knew Mechanicville
was a very special place, but that doesn’t do justice to how incredible this community has been,” said Principal Michael Mitchell. “We’re just trying to support our kids. We have an amazing community with people who want to do the best by them. The investment made to put cardboard cutout fans of family, of faculty and important people in Mechanicville history is unreal. To have one side of our stands filled with the cardboard cutouts is something that’s going to excite out studentathletes.”
He described the reaction of some of the players as they saw the cutouts for the first time.
“They were blown away. I watched the JV boys come in the gym today and their jaws dropped,” Mitchell said. “Without the help of our community, this would have never happened.”
Mechanicville’s games against their crosstown rivals, Stillwater, would typically be played in a full gym. The cutouts being done in time for the rivalry game just helps things feel a bit more like normal, even though they won’t be making much noise.
“I think it was important to try to get this done for tonight’s game against Stillwater,” Mitchell said. “We’re really fortunate to have people like Mike Raucci and all the others, this is a special place and a special school.”
“It’s so great hearing the balls bouncing in the gym again,” Richardson added. “It gives us a little bit or normalcy that we haven’t had in the last eleven months.”